Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Student Ethnographic Research Experiences At The University Of Puget Sound, Andrew M. Gardner

All Faculty Scholarship

This brief essay describes programming at the University

of Puget Sound that allows undergraduate students to pursue

independent ethnographic research projects. This programming

undergirds all three of the subsequent student essays included in this

issue. The mission of this programming is to encourage “experiential

learning”—an objective that is aligned (and perhaps derivative)

of the methodological toolkit long deployed by anthropological

ethnographers. The essay describes the pedagogic goals that I

have been able to integrate into the supervision of this experiential

programming, and also discusses how we have sought to balance

independently-derived student research interests with the broader

research agendas codified …

Big Parcels: Modernist Planning In Washington State History, Andrew M. Gardner, Becca C. Murphy

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In anthropology’s spatial turn, cultural anthropologists directed portions of their attention to the spaces in which human habitation takes shape. This article concerns the large planned spaces configured in the Modernist era of the twentieth century. Utilizing a fieldwork-based methodology that draws on the ethnographic toolkit, analysis compares and contrasts three large planned spaces located in Washington State: the former site of the Northern State Mental Hospital in Sedro-Woolley, the location in central Spokane at which Expo 74 was hosted, and the rural location of the never-completed Satsop Nuclear Facility near Elma, Washington. Our analysis suggests the singular use for …

Savages, Deplorables, And The Promise Of Anthropological Ethnography, Andrew M. Gardner

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This short essay describes a longitudinal ethnographic project on which I am embarking with successive coteries of students here at the University of Puget Sound. The essay starts with a discussion of the latent power of ethnography to cross thresholds of difference on a mission of empathy and understanding. I tie this mission to the legacy and definition of anthropological ethnography. In the second section of the essay, I discuss the fractious nature of the American polity, and the caricatures of rural Americans that I've encountered in the urban and academic environs of the west coast. In the final …

Cosmopolitanism And Urban Space In Doha, Qatar, Andrew M. Gardner

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This essay commences with an ethnographic sojourn through the Industrial Area, a peripheral zone of the urban landscape in Doha, Qatar that is densely inhabited by low wage migrant laborers. In this segregated urban enclave, I ascertain the openness to alterity and the interactions with difference that connect their experiences to the conceptual legacy of cosmopolitanism. Via a discussion of the segregated experiences of transnational migrants in Doha’s urban landscape, I then stake out a speculative argument for the connection between that segregation and the resulting cosmopolitan conditions. Together, these two assertions explore manifestations of cosmopolitan urbanism in non-Western and …

Review Of Beyond Exception: New Interpretations Of The Arabian Peninsula, Andrew M. Gardner

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This is a published review of the book Beyond Exception: New Interpretations of the Arabian Peninsula, by Ahmed Kanna, Amélie Le Renard, and Neha Vora.

A Window To Urban Arabia, Andrew M. Gardner

All Faculty Scholarship

This set of images collectively seeks to provide viewers with a window into Doha, Qatar, and into the urban heart of the modern Middle East that’s arisen on the Arabian Peninsula. Designed as an exhibit of photography, the images include overlapping themes that explore particular facets or threads of the urban landscape and life therein. In the final accounting, the collection as a whole is intended as an ode to the city itself.

On Teaching Ethnography In Troubled Times, Andrew M. Gardner

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In this essay, I describe an incident stemming from a field-based ethnographic exercise I utilize in one of the courses which I have designed and which I regularly teach. In my estimation, the contours of the incident I describe here reveal the institutional and ideological parameters of a paradigm that currently dominates contemporary American campuses. I suggest that my experience points to frictions between that seemingly hegemonic academic paradigm and the core values and practices that the discipline of anthropology endeavours to carry into the new millennium. I conclude that this experience, and the institutional practices and ideologies it reveals, …

Classification As Narrative: A Renewed Perspective On A Longstanding Topic In Ethnobiology, Denise M. Glover

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The present work offers a renewed perspective on natural-kind classification in the field of ethnobiology, one that focuses on analyzing higher-order classifications as a form of narrative. By examining changes in classification of materia medica in three main medical/pharmacological texts from three time periods of the Tibetan medicine tradition, we see an overarching shift in classification from a focus on medical efficacy to one on material substance and morphology, thus suggesting influence from pre-twenty-first century western, Linnaean science. The work then links this historical narrative to the complexities of classification of materia medica among contemporary doctors of Tibetan medicine in …

Introduction To Special Section On Cannabis, Denise M. Glover

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Introduction to Special Section on Cannabis.

Evidence-Based Acquisition: A Real Life Account Of Managing The Program Within The Orbis Cascade Alliance, Hilary Robbeloth, Matthew Ragucci, Kristina M. Deshazo

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In 2015 the Orbis Cascade Alliance investigated a consortium wide evidence-based acquisition (EBA) model to incorporate into its established eBook program, and began a pilot of Wiley’s Usage Based Collection Management Model. EBA is an acquisition model that grants library patrons access to a title list over an agreed-upon time period for a pre-negotiated amount of money, and titles from that list are then selected for purchase based on the evidence of usage from the initial access period. This article shares the consortium’s experiences evaluating usage, managing titles and records, controlling duplication, predicting costs, and the inclusion of MARC records …

The Journey To Arabia: A Visual Essay, Andrew M. Gardner

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This photographic essay includes numerous photographs portraying the journey transnational migrants take from South Asia to the Arabian Peninsula, and includes a short essay that describes the major features of this migration system.

Review Of Bodies In Balance: The Art Of Tibetan Medicine By Teresia Hofer, Denise M. Glover

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No abstract provided.

Finding Oneself While Discovering Others: An Existential Perspective On Volunteer Tourism In Thailand, Nick Kontogeorgopoulos

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The purpose of this study is to explore the importance of existential authenticity in the motivations and activities of volunteer tourists in Thailand. Although studies of volunteer tourism have hinted at the importance of existential themes, few have explicitly utilized an existential framework to assess the authenticity of volunteer tourist experiences. The findings of this study illustrate that the volunteer tourism experience is driven by a desire for existential authenticity in both its intrapersonal and interpersonal varieties, and that working with children facilitates existentially authentic outcomes for volunteers. At the same time, while the perceived material authenticity of hosts enhances …

Review Of Environmental Education In China By Gerald A. Mcbeath And Jenifer Huang Mcbeath, Denise M. Glover

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Book Review

Forays Into The Backstage: Volunteer Tourism And The Pursuit Of Object Authenticity, Nick Kontogeorgopolous

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Volunteer tourism is a form of travel that combines traditional leisure pursuits with opportunities to volunteer in an organized fashion. The popularity of volunteer tourism stems from many factors, but the one motivation that appears in virtually every study is a desire for object authenticity, defined as the authenticity of toured objects, people, and settings. The purpose of this paper is to explore the role played by object authenticity in the motivations and experiences of volunteer tourists in the province of Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. Based on interviews with 62 volunteers and 15 directors, managers, and staff members from …

Circular Migration And The Gulf States, Andrew M. Gardner, Zahra Babar

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In this chapter the authors assess the application of the circular migration framework to the six Gulf Cooperation Council member states of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and Oman. By some estimations, the six GCC states comprise the third largest migratory destination in the contemporary world, and for decades these states have hosted large transient migrant populations that, in some manner or another, appear to fit the definition of circular migration. Through an analysis of migration to the Gulf States this chapter provides an empiri- cal contribution to the expanding discussion of circular migration. In this chapter …

Viral Signs: Confronting Cultural Relativism With Children's Health In The Field, Denise M. Glover

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While many anthropologists and other scholars undertake fieldwork together with their families, this is often not mentioned even though children can have a major impact on their work. This volume explores the many issues of conducting fieldwork with children, offering a wide range of experiences that question and reflect on methodological issue.

[from description of book]

How The City Grows: Urban Growth And Challenges To Sustainable Development In Doha, Qatar, Andrew M. Gardner

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This book chapter considers how sustainable development fits in the social, political, and cultural context of contemporary Doha, Qatar. After a review of sustainable development and urban development in Qatar, this chapter makes several contentions. First, it contends that sustainable development poses a challenge to the political stability of a society that distributes state-controlled wealth to its citizenry through urban development. Second, it points to the fact that Qatar's tribal/authoritarian political regime is antithetical to some of the bottom-up democratic principles thought to underpin sustainable development. Finally, it suggest that the consignment of sustainable development efforts to the spatial discourse …

Labour Migrants And Access To Justice In Contemporary Qatar, Andrew M. Gardner, Silvia Pessoa, Laura M. Harkness

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In 2012, the Open Society Institute’s International Migration Initiative launched a study to examine migrants‘ access to justice in Qatar. This study was led by researchers Andrew Gardner (University of Puget Sound), Silvia Pessoa (Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar), and Laura Harkness. The study was built on the foundation of a the research team’s large, three-year research project funded by the Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF). That project administered Qatar’s first large-scale survey devoted solely to exploring the migration experience. Of the 1189 migrants surveyed for that project, the research team was able to identify those individuals who had reported …

A Modest Movie Migration: Digitizing And Providing Institutional Repository Access To A Small Archive Of Motion Picture Films At A Liberal Arts College, Benjamin A. R. Tucker

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What does a liberal arts college library do with its small archive of aging motion picture films without access to expensive digitization equipment or staff with specialized expertise? The same thing libraries always do: the best job possible for library users with the resources available. This column chronicles some aspects of working with a small film archive at a liberal arts college library, including reference materials, nitrate and acetate film, vendor digitization, and access via digital institutional repository.

"When Did We Start Just Making Shit Up": Origins Of U. S. Pseudocracy, Hans Ostrom, William Haltom

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Early in 2011, a colleague asked, “When did we start just making shit up?” By “we,” she meant Americans but also, more specifically, those involved in politics—directly or as in­terested parties.

We an­swer her question variously in this paper.[1] But our overarching answer is that poli­ti­cos started flatly concocting misin­for­ma­tion when our propaganda polity mutated into a pseudocracy.

We wend our way to that answer as follows. After reviewing an­swers we deem insuffi­cient, we provide two sorts of tentative, rough an­swers. Our first answer is that the stretch­ing of what counts as an untruth combined with the lengthening of …

W.W. Seymour Botanical Conservatory, Visitor Engagement Study, Summary Of Findings,, Amy E. Ryken

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Summary of findings: Study of visitor engagement and learning at the W.W. Seymour Botanical Conservatory in Tacoma, Washington. Findings include: analysis of visitor responses to a survey and analysis of observations of visitor engagement. Written for Metro Parks, Tacoma, Washington.

Who Is Us? Who Are Them? What Is Your Role In Continuing The Conversation?, Amy E. Ryken

All Faculty Scholarship

Keynote address which explores the parallels between lavender weddings and lavender graduations given by Amy E. Ryken at the Lavender Graduates' Celebration in 2004 at the University of Puget Sound.